Thursday, September 01, 2011

Update on Phoebe

As many of you asked, here's what happened at the V-E-T last night: I got lots of treats! They were nummy too. The nice assistant said that when humans give blood they get cookies and OJ so why shouldn't I get treats?

Wait...what? Oh besides the treats? I got poked and prodded and Dr. Country Bob took out some blood. He was rather baffled by what happened to me in Cape Cod but he has a good theory as to why things happened. Before we went up to the Cape, I had a couple of cortisone shots. I had been having bad poopies and vomits and Dr. Country Bob thought I had something called Irritable Bowel Syndrome, hence the shots. However, now he thinks that I might have had some kind of infection in my system because for a long time I had a high white cell count. Everybody thought it was just a chronic infection but now Dr. Country Bob thinks it might be along the lines of toxoplasmosis or some other type of infection that messes with my immune system. When he gave me the steroid shots that just lowered my immune system even farther and screwed me up. This may be why I had a seizure and then lost my motor control 'cause they both corresponded with the shots. For this he's going to keep me on clindamycin for thirty days, which is the standard treatment for toxoplasmosis.

There was another thing Dr. Country Bob was worried about: my red blood cell count. It was down to 14% (normal is above 29%) when I was up at the Cape. The V-E-T up there mentioned a blood transfusion but didn't push that issue. Dr. Country Bob took more blood and I was up to 24%. He is going to check me again in two weeks. He thinks that what ever caused the other problems also caused the red blood cell count to go down.

And just an FYI, I don't blame Dr. Country Bob for any of this. He couldn't have known I had an underlying problem. Toxoplasmosis wasn't even considered an option 'cause I never went outside and never ate raw meat. None of the other cats in the household have either. Also, I am doing considerably better than I was last week. Hopefully my good progress will continue.

For the most part, it sounds like you are doing OK and that is most important :) Vet Country Bob sounds like a more caring vet than that other one :/We send you purrs that you keep getting better :)Purrs Tillie & Georgia

Ooh, thats all scarey! We hope ya are better soon. Does that mean we should have TBT cook our mousies before we eat them? And we cant have little tidbits of raw chick-hen or beefst from TBTs dinner prep?